Salt Cedar Eradication?

[Greg Cook]

While at my parent's house this morning, RFD-TV had a show titled "Farm Bureau Today". One of their topics was about the Salt Cedar eradication efforts underway in Texas. They have been authorized by APHIS and USDA to release beetles which will kill these "trees" over a period of two or three years. I say "trees" because, from a distance, they appear to be brush or scrub 8 to 12 feet high. The close-up shots showed smallish limbs and leaf/needle arrangements very similar to ERC. My worries are:

      Do these beetles (imported from Greece) devour ONLY Salt Cedar?
      Would or could there be mutations that could develop a taste for ERC?
 
I know ERC is a problem in some areas (I have some of those areas myself) but on the whole it makes a fine tree with little input from us.

Anyone else know more about this, or where the studies done before the release may be contained?

Thanks,
Greg

[Texas Ranger]

Beetles, huh?  Well there goes our timber.............

[Tom]

My sentiments also, Texas Ranger.

A lot of the same people that will bring in a foreign insect to kill a tree will fight cutting the tree down and might even be one that ship the tree in to begin with.  It's not fighting fire with fire, it's "stacking water in a glass".  Water doesn't stack.  You only find out by listening to someone who has tried, or pour it yourself.  If you decide not to listen, then you will find out when you hit the rim of the glass and someone's table gets wet.

That's what happens to these people who don't listen, they keep getting the table wet.  Most generally it's someone else's table.

[rebocardo]

Sounds kind of an insane thing to do with unknown future results. Bugs adapt, I am sure once the food source gets scarce, some will adapt to eat something else so they will not die.

Are they going to introduce its natural predators too?

How are they going to check every bug for unknown bacteria and viruses?

Just a man made disaster waiting to happen imo.

[Greg Cook]

Unfortunately, it seems the Texas Farm Bureau is all for this. They say the cedar is making the ground drier by using up what little moisture is there.  They want the "native" grasses and plants to return so that more cattle can graze. That's THEIR words, not mine.  Now, I think that if this stuff is that big a problem, there are MECHANICAL ways to get rid of it, and that doesn't jeopardize any other species (other than a few mice and snakes and such).
This is also part of the same National Farm Bureau who thinks it s good idea to permanently ID and track EVERY farm animal. We still won't know how many illegal aliens are in the country nor where they are from, but DanG'ed if we won't be able to keep a sharp eye on all those chickens! And don't forget how rebellious hogs can be. Remember "Animal Farm"?
I figure thats just a trial run to get the kinks worked out of the system for a National Personal ID system, complete with microchips.

Done preaching.
Greg

[Tom]

Don't stop now!  The choir all turned your way.

[isawlogs]

  All's we need ... another smart ass that brings in yet another beetle for us to deal with after. Have they figured out that the cedar aint gonna last forever .    Whats gonna hapen after         

     

   

[Norm]

I'm guessing these are the same genius' that brought in the asian lady bug to combat the soybean aphids. We don't have any less aphids but we have a few billion more lady bugs....and that's just in my house.

[Polly]

  universety ky turned some kind of beetles loose in ky to supposedly kill some kind of insect that was supposedly killing some of our trees in winter they would get in the house and you would have to use broom and dust pan to sweep them up two or three galon at a time you could be watching tv and they would lite on your glasses or in your hair so for this year they dont seem to be as bade after people complaned about them ky blamed university of tenn for turning them loose we got deer coyotes black bear and lord knows what else pushed on us same way only thing to do is  and bear it

[MikeH]

Right on Norm, I also have millions of these Lady Bugs! What next? I Have a yellow(cream) house. I think they think its a giant flower.

[beenthere]

Those nasty Asian beetles give the docile lady bugs a bad name..

[Sawyerfortyish]

After these bugs kill the trees/brush will they eat it so the native grass will grow right back or will someone have to saw and chip that brush anyway to get rid of it.  Being a cedar in a dryer climate I think it would stand for years dead before rotting. But what do I know

[estiers]

Time out!!  I knwo that in the past there have been some horrible consequenses as related to introducing one species into an environment to kill another.  However, just as you have noticed the mistakes, we (USDA APHIS) have learned from them.  It is very difficult to get the permits necessary to release these types of insect (not so in years past) and there gave to be many studies done to show the impact on the environment, including the host specificity component.

ERC (Juniperus virginiana) and saltcedar (Tamarix spp.) are not in the same genus (neither is a "trus" cedar), and are not closelt related.  The beetles they are releasing are highly host specific to Tamarix spp. of which there are less then 10 native species, all considered weeds.

As for other methods of control that are mentioned, those work well in areas where machinery and people can reach, but not so much in ravines and places impossible to reach by humans.  These areas often are tributaries of water, and because saltcedar is such a rapid consumer of water (a single plant can transpire up to 200 gallons of water per day), control in all areas is important, especially in the wester US where water is such a big issue.

[Cedarman]

Just got back from a 10 day canoe trip down the Green river in Utah. Tamarisk lines the bank except where there is solid rock.  They form dense groves that are almost impossible to pass through.  They do hold the banks though.  The wood seems to rot when kept wet.  When it dries it is extremely flamable.  The groves have immense amounts of dead material in the lowere 1/2 of the groves.  If they catch fire, they make an intense wildfire.  New seedlings start up immediately.  Seed production is enormous.  I don't think any amount of mechanical means could control this species.

It will be interesting to watch the bug do its thing.

[Greg Cook]

Sorry, guys. I know that those wanting to get rid of it mean well, but, living in the South, just let me say:

KUDZU
MULTIFLORA ROSE

And our many thanks to those who brought these fine "helpers" to us.

Greg

[Cedarman]

Multiflora rose doesn't do to well in our area any more since the blight, bugs and other enemies have attacked it.  We still have some, but it doesn't take over the fields like it used to.  I don't even notice it much anymore.
Kudzu is coming in.  Need some really cold winters to knock it back.  It is even in northern Indiana I hear.

[estiers]

Kudzu and MR were brought in for completely different reasons than what we are speaking of here.  Years ago, the borders were pretty open for plant imports and people brought in whatever from wherever (Where did Chestnut Blight come from??).  Kudzu was brought in for erosion control in 1876.  MR was brought in for rose rootstock in 1866.  Really, are you going say no to any biological control programs based on 2 introduced species introduced almost 150 years ago???

[beenthere]

estiers
I would tend to answer 'yes' to that question, especially when encountering the asian beetles around this time of year (introduced to eat the soy bean aphids). Now I see they are attacking trees (I need to read up more about that apparent problem).  Google "asian beetle infestation" and I see now it is referring to the Asian longhorn beetle, not the multi-color Asian beetle.

from one source:

 How Did These Exotic Lady Beetles Get Here?
The multicolored Asian lady beetle made its way into the United States through a number of accidental and planned releases. There are several reports that this species was accidentally brought on ships to various ports, notably New Orleans and Seattle. This lady beetle was also intentionally imported from Russia, Japan, Korea, and elsewhere in the Orient and released in the United States as part of a Federal effort to naturally control insect pests in trees. The rationale was that native species of lady beetles are not particularly effective in controlling tree-feeding aphids and scale insects. The Federal releases were made in California as early as 1916 and again in the mid-1960s, but the multicolored Asian lady beetle apparently failed to establish.

During the late 1970s through the early 1980s, tens of thousands of multicolored Asian lady beetles were intentionally released by the U. S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) in an effort to control insect pests that injure trees. The USDA-ARS coordinated the lady beetle releases in many southern and eastern states, including Ohio, Maine, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana. In Ohio, a total of approximately 1,800 lady beetles was released in Cuyahoga and Lake Counties during June 1979 and July 1980. During this period, the largest USDA-ARS releases (more than 11,000 lady beetles) were made in Georgia. In addition, more than 14,000 lady beetles were released in the western United States near Yakima, Washington. Small releases were also made in the District of Columbia and in Nova Scotia, Canada. The USDA-ARS release program was eventually discontinued because failed recapture efforts suggested that the multicolored Asian lady beetle was not surviving in the United States.

Hence, there is some controversy regarding the origins of this nonnative species. Nonetheless, the multicolored Asian lady beetle is now well established in the United States, where it currently thrives in many parts of the Midwest, East, South, and Northwest. This nonnative species appears to be displacing some of our native lady beetles in Ohio.

[Greg Cook]

Sorry, Estiers, but I will have to say no to the beetles.  I'm sure the fine folks at the USDA, et. al. do a thorough job of covering all eventualities, but how do we know this little bug is salt cedar specific?  Does it die as if poisoned when it eats something else? And though the salt cedar and ERC are of a different taxonomy, who is to say it can't eat another useful plant?  It may discover that soybeans of cotton are tastier than salt cedar. With so much biological uncertanty , is it truly worth the risk?  Do we know what to spray it with to kill it should we decide later we don't want it here?  What are the after-effects of that spray?

I'm being a bit more isolationist these days, but with Chestnuts not being able to live long enough to make a decent log, I'm a bit overprotective.

I am sorry.

Greg

[estiers]

Sorry, Estiers, but I will have to say no to the beetles.  I'm sure the fine folks at the USDA, et. al. do a thorough job of covering all eventualities, but how do we know this little bug is salt cedar specific?  Does it die as if poisoned when it eats something else? And though the salt cedar and ERC are of a different taxonomy, who is to say it can't eat another useful plant?  It may discover that soybeans of cotton are tastier than salt cedar.

We know this becaue of studies that "force fed" the Diorhabda beetles all kinds of things.  No, it was not force fed cotton or soybeans, because enough is known about its biology in its native land to know that is not a possibility.  Most insects do not feed across wide genra range, let alone family (see EAB - do you but that it is not going to feed on your oaks?).

is it truly worth the risk? 

As for this, perhaps you should ask some of the people on this forum who live in the west and deal with this issue.  Even if they don't deal specifically with this issue, they can appreciate the water propblems that this plant causes.  This is not a water issue that can be resolved with some good rains, like the one you are dealing with in the East.  Rather, so good rains will only exascerbate this problem, causing saltcedar to multiply and have progeny that will take up 200 gallons of water per day.